Anthropic to Strengthen Founders' Rights and Unitree's 460% Surge: Key Takeaways on the IPO by August 23

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, is preparing to strengthen the founders’ authority ahead of its IPO to protect them from shareholder pressure. Shein may begin trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 1, but it will likely fail to achieve its desired valuation. Unitree Robotics, a Chinese manufacturer of dancing robots, had a triumphant debut in Shanghai: its shares soared 460% on the first day of trading, and the company’s founder joined the ranks of China’s wealthiest tech billionaires. Here’s our roundup of the week’s top events in the initial public offering (IPO) market.

— Anthropic will grant CEO Dario Amodei and other co-founders shares with super voting rights, The Information reported, citing sources. This is intended to give them greater control and protect them from pressure from outside shareholders. This arrangement is common among founder-led companies; it is used, for example, at Meta and SpaceX. Anthropic’s co-founders hold a relatively small stake compared to the founders of other tech companies. In particular, Amodei owns only about 2% of the shares, a source told The Information. The developer of the Claude chatbot is expected to file a public offering by the end of August. The company hopes to surpass—or at least match—the amount of capital raised by Elon Musk’s record-breaking SpaceX IPO, according to Bloomberg sources.

— Shein, the Asian fast-fashion giant founded in China in 2012 and known for its $5 dresses and $10 jeans, risks falling short of its desired $30–40 billion valuation during its IPO. According to Bloomberg sources, the company has lowered its expectations to $26–27 billion. Two sources told Reuters that Shein could be valued at $25 billion, while a third indicated that the company is hoping for a valuation in the range of $25 billion to $28 billion. This is only about a quarter of the retailer’s peak valuation—in 2022, during a funding round, Shein was valued at nearly $100 billion. According to Bloomberg, Shein expects to raise about $2 billion, of which at least $400 million will come from key IPO investors, which may include Chinese internet giant Tencent and UBS’s asset management division. The listing date has not yet been set—Shein plans to begin trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 1, but a delay of several days is possible, according to sources who spoke to Reuters.

— Bioptic, a startup co-founded and led by former Google executive Andrei Doronichev, is considering an IPO as one of the project’s development scenarios, Doronichev himself said in an interview with Oninvest. Bioptic is working to accelerate drug development using AI. In 2026, the company filed a patent application for an algorithm that uses ultra-fast AI screening of targets to combat Parkinson’s disease. In 2022, the company raised $11 million in a seed round. The startup is currently raising a new round of investment in the venture capital market.

— Following the triumphant debut of Chinese robotics manufacturer Unitree Robotics, several of its competitors are now discussing going public. LimX Dynamics, a company backed by Alibaba and JD.com, has already filed a confidential IPO application in Hong Kong and could raise hundreds of millions of dollars, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. Founded in 2022, LimX develops humanoid robots for use in manufacturing, research, homes, and commercial settings such as shopping malls. In July, investors valued LimX at 15 billion yuan ($2.2 billion).

— Robotera, a startup that manufactures humanoid robots and robotic arms with a high degree of mobility, also plans to list its shares in Hong Kong, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. According to one of the sources, the company could raise between $800 million and $1 billion. Robotera’s products are currently used in the logistics sector, and the company is expanding its presence in the automotive and other industries.

— AiMOGA Robotics, the robotics division of Chery Automobile, China’s largest automaker, is also preparing for an IPO and is in talks regarding potential listing venues, Zhang Guibin, head of the division and president of Chery International, told Reuters. According to him, AiMOGA plans to ship 10,000 robots worldwide next year and ultimately become one of the world’s largest robotics companies. To date, AiMOGA—founded with Chery’s support in early 2025—has delivered more than 3,000 robots worldwide, 2,000 of which were shipped outside China.

— Chinese flash memory manufacturer Yangtze Memory Technology Co. (YMTC) has taken a step closer to going public. The company has completed its pre-listing preparations and has been deemed to meet the criteria required for admission to trading, according to Bloomberg. YMTC’s competitor, chipmaker CXMT, raised 66.6 billion yuan ($9.9 billion) in late July and, following the offering, became China’s most valuable company.

— Shares of Unitree Robotics, a company known for its dancing humanoid robots, soared 460% during its debut trading session in Shanghai on August 19. Unitree was the first Chinese manufacturer of humanoid robots to list its shares on a stock exchange in mainland China. During its IPO, the company raised approximately $900 million, achieving a valuation of about $9 billion. By the end of the first day of trading, its market capitalization exceeded $50 billion.

— Shares of Lyntris, a company that develops, among other things, sensors for missile and air defense systems, fell 14% on their first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. During the IPO, the company and its shareholders raised a total of $297.5 million, whereas they had initially expected to raise up to $528 million. Lyntris was formed in May 2026 through the merger of two portfolio companies of the Trive Capital investment fund—Vitesse, a developer of sensor technologies, and Accelint, whose artificial intelligence software enables data analysis. Lyntris plans to use the proceeds from the offering to repay its debt.

— The Hong Kong Stock Exchange reported a 24% increase in net income for the first half of the year, to 10.6 billion Hong Kong dollars ($1.4 billion). The result exceeded analysts’ consensus forecast, according to Reuters. The main drivers of profit growth were high trading volumes and a surge in activity in the initial public offering (IPO) market. The volume of IPOs in the first half of the year increased by 94%, with 87 companies raising a total of 212.4 billion Hong Kong dollars ($27.1 billion). By this measure, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ranked second in the world, behind only Nasdaq.

— Unitree founder Wang Xingsheng joined the ranks of China’s wealthiest tech billionaires following the company’s successful IPO. According to Forbes, at its peak on the first day of trading, the entrepreneur’s net worth reached $16 billion—seven times more than before the IPO. Wang Xingsheng is 36 years old. He worked briefly at drone manufacturer DJI and resigned after a video of a robot dog he created—a prototype of the future XDog robot—went viral and attracted business angels. That same year, at the age of 26, he founded Unitree, which China subsequently identified as one of the potential “drivers of economic growth.”

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor